The Grey Cloak - Page 20/256

The distance from the Candlestick was too short for the need of a

horse, so the Chevalier walked, lightly humming an old chanson of the

reign of Louis XIII, among whose royal pastimes was that of shaving his

courtiers: "Alas, my poor barber,

What is it makes you sad?"

"It is the grand king Louis,

Thirteenth of that name."

He swung into the Rue Dauphin and mounted the Pont Neuf, glancing idly

below at the ferrymen whose torches threw on the black bosom of the

Seine long wavering threads of phantom fire. The snow-clouds had

passed over, and the stars were shining; the wind was falling. The

quays were white; the Louvre seemed but a vast pile of ghostly stones.

The hands of the clock in the quaint water-tower La Samaritaine pointed

at five to eight. Oddly enough there came to the Chevalier a

transitory picture of a young Jesuit priest, winding through the bleak

hills on the way to Rouen. The glories of the world, the love of

women? What romance lay smoldering beneath that black cassock? What

secret grief? What sin? Brother Jacques? The name signified nothing.

Like all courtiers of his time, the Chevalier entertained the belief

that when a handsome youth took the orders it was in the effort to bury

some grief rather than to assist in the alleviation of the sorrows of

mankind.

He walked on, skirting the Louvre and presently entering the courtyard

of the Palais Royal. The number of flambeaux, carriages and calèches

indicated to him that Mazarin was giving a party. He lifted his cloak

from his shoulders, shook it, and threw it over his arm, and ascended

the broad staircase, his heart beating swiftly. Would he see her?

Would she be in the gallery? Would this night dispel the mystery? At

the first landing he ran almost into Captain de Guitaut, who was

descending.

"Cévennes?" cried the captain, frankly astounded.

"And freshly from Rome, my Captain. His Eminence is giving a party?"

"Are you weary of life, Monsieur?" asked the captain. "What are you

doing here? I had supposed you to be a man of sense, and on the way to

Spain. And my word of honor, you stick your head down the lion's

mouth! Follow your nose, follow your nose; it is none of my affair."

And the gruff old captain passed on down the stairs.

The Chevalier stared after him in bewilderment. Spain? . . . Weary of

life? What had happened?

"Monsieur du Cévennes?" cried a thin voice at his elbow.

The Chevalier turned and beheld Bernouin, the cardinal's valet.

"Ah!" said the Chevalier. Here was a man to explain the captain's

riddle. "Will you announce to his Eminence that I have returned from

Rome, and also explain why you are looking at me with such bulging

eyes? Am I a ghost?" The Chevalier, being rich, was one of the few

who were never overawed by the grandeur of Mazarin's valet. "What is

the matter?"